


Home Cooked

by Seilann



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen, captain and crew relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 19:53:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7187825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seilann/pseuds/Seilann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lalli and Sigrun bond over, of all things, Mikkel's cooking. (For Rabbit!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Cooked

Sigrun flipped back the covers and leapt to the floor in one fluid motion, landing perfectly between Reynir's noodle legs and Mikkel's tree trunks. Haha, that had to be a good omen! Today was surely a day for victory over numerous trolls, with a buttload of valuable tomes as their trophies. And then they would have a mighty bonfire using all those golf books and “nuclear physics” fake science stories.

"Up and at 'em, pretty guy!" She strode through the narrow space between Reynir and Mikkel with a little wave over Emil's golden head. "Today is going to be a superlative day!"

"I thought it was our day off," Emil grumbled.

“Every day is a day off. We’re on vacation!”

The usual little _skritch-skratch_ of gloved fingers against metal summoned her to the door. Usually she left the boring decon stuff to someone else, but since _her crew was being so slow today_ … Sigrun guessed her number was up. Stifling a yawn (how disgraceful, on such a glorious morning as this!) she threw the side lever and cracked the steel door open.

The scout paused halfway in, mouth drawn as though he’d rather literally any other person be waiting for him.

“Alright, little twig.” Sigrun reached for the spray bottle of disinfectant and turned the nozzle toward him. “We can do this the easy way, or—”

In the span of a blink Lalli had backpedaled outside again.

“—or… we can just let Emil come after you when he’s ready.”

With a flurry of Icelandic that was almost recognizable as, “Oh, I can do it!” Reynir swept past Sigrun with his long braid folded accordion-style and tucked under a handkerchief. The disinfectant vanished from her hands. Moments later cries of “Bíddu! Lalli!” and “Ei!” echoed through the camp.

It made Sigrun proud to have at least one go-getter in her crew. Even if it wasn’t her right-hand warrior.

Speaking of. “Emil! Do your skincare routine _after_ we blow stuff up!”

 

By the time everyone was awake and at least _approaching_ battle-ready, Sigrun had decided that that charming little village down the side road would make the perfect raid target. There were only six houses, but each looked big enough for like five libraries. Rich people sure loved to waste their time with books back in the day.

Not even breakfast could dampen the captain’s spirits. Until she actually smelled it.

Sigrun pointed her spoon at Mikkel. A large gray glop fell from the end and hit the snow with a hiss. “You’re feeding us troll snot.”

“I am doing no such thing,” Mikkel said, one hand on his hip at he stirred. He reminded Sigrun of a fat statue from the cover of a book about Buddhism — whatever that was. Something to do with the art of smugness? “I have added not a single ingredient aside from what is in our stocks.”

“Candles, then. I knew it.”

“Let me reiterate. _I_ have not been the one adding unsanctioned ingredients.”

“I mean, you could at least _try_ to disguise the taste.”

“Mmhmm. I’m going to look for a spare fuel canister.”

“Yesterday’s version tasted more bearable,” she called after him. “Do to this batch whatever you did to that one!”

Sigrun took a bite of her gloop. Gross, but she would take it like a warrior. Across the way, Tuuri and Reynir chattered as they always did. The cat slinked between their feet, begging attention. Meanwhile Emil had already run off to bring the other cat his food.

Emil did make a great apprentice, even if he did have a habit of doing everything wrong. Usually it kept this little vacation from getting too boring. (Sigrun handled boring the same way she handled trolls: with knives and enthusiasm. She couldn't say exactly how that worked, but she liked the sound of it, so it was one of her favorite brags.) Mikkel had his uses, when he wasn’t swinging pipes at things or cooking. And without Tuuri the tank would have coughed its last by now. Even Reynir did okay with the housekeeping, as long as he didn’t get too excited and faceplant in the mud with the clean laundry.

Sigrun felt just a little guilty as a leader when she considered her scout, though. As with the decon, she mainly let Tuuri and Emil do the interacting with him. Yeah, only so much gets through language barriers. She’d have to keep getting more aggressive with the backslaps, really show him how much she wanted to praise him. If he gave a good report this morning, a nice solid smack across the shoulders was in order…

The timing was almost perfect. Sigrun hadn’t actually seen him, but the little twig must have been hiding around the side of the tank, waiting for his chance. Mikkel called to Tuuri, distracting both her and the braid boy. Like a passing shadow, Lalli flitted toward the stew pot, dumped the entire contents of his untouched bowl back into it, then reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pair of dead water voles, and dropped them in as well.

Fur and all.

His dark-ringed eyes widened when he realized Sigrun was watching. A miscalculation? she thought. He looked drained — that had proven to have consequences before. Sigrun did nothing, wondering if his tired mind would see her as a threat.

Holding her gaze, Lalli slipped his other hand out of his pocket, curled around something unseen, and held it over the pot. He rubbed his thumb and fingers together. Crumbs.

Cookie crumbs.

Sigrun managed to control herself until the scout had backed away. Her laughter sent the kitten skittering into the tank, whipped Tuuri’s and Reynir’s heads back around. Birds took flight from the nearby trees.

So little dead animals and cookie crumbs of mysterious origin were to thank for the enhanced taste of the food lately.

Yeah, little twig had a variety of uses, too. Maybe it was time to really reach out to him.

And get him used to victory backslaps.

**Author's Note:**

> If writing this at the airport after 28 hours without sleep has caused any typos or weird gibberish to appear, make a note and I'll fix it after my recovery. :)
> 
> Thanks Rabbit for saying these two are your favorite characters and triggering the end of my writer's block!


End file.
